BeforeHayden Christensenmade his 2002 debut as Anakin Skywalker in the second installment of theStar Warsprequel trilogy,Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, he received critical acclaim for his performance as a rebellious teenager who struggles to reconnect with his dying father in the 2001 drama filmLife as a House. FollowingAttack of the Clones, Christensen sought to expand his range as an actor with his featured role in the 2003 biographical drama filmShattered Glass, in which he plays Stephen Glass, a once-celebrated reporter for the venerable magazineThe New Republic, who was found to have fabricated the majority of his stories.
In detailing Glass’s rapid professional and psychological collapse,Shattered Glassexplores themes of ambition, betrayal, and loyalty while providing a realistic depiction of a working newsroom struggling to come to terms with an unprecedented crisis.Christensen’s subtle, textured performance provides a riveting character study of an admitted serial liar who was strangely addicted to the acclaim he received for writing fiction in the guise of journalism. While Glass was an undeniably gifted writer, despite his fraud,Shattered Glassclearly establishesthat Glass was a much better actor than a journalist.
Stephen Glass Is a Master Manipulator Disguised as a Journalist
Shattered Glass
Just asPalpatine masterfully exploits Anakin Skywalker’s vulnerabilitiesto turn Anakin to the dark side inStar Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith,Shattered Glassshows how Stephen Glass expertly manipulates his colleagues to further his corrupt agenda. The greatest vulnerability that his colleagues had atThe New Republicmagazine was Glass. His bashful charm and reflexively apologetic nature enabled him to fully ingratiate himself among his colleagues, especially the magazine’s female staff members, who regarded him as a surrogate brother figure to be coddled and protected.
While his puppy-dog earnestness seems initially intrinsic to his personality, this is revealed to be a pillar of his deceptive strategy.Shattered Glassunfolds asa cat-and-mouse thrillerin which Glass narrowly avoids detection through the inspired creation of a dizzying assortment of business cards, notes, e-mails, faxes, and even a fake website. When questioned byThe New Republiceditor Michael Kelly regarding the veracity of an article in which he incorrectly identified a hotel mini-bar, an anguished Glass effusively admits to this minor mistake without mentioning that the entire article was faked.
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In addition to winning the complete trust of his colleagues, Glass had a deep understanding of the fact-checking process and knew how to game the system. Before he became an associate editor and a reporter atThe New Republic,he led the magazine’s fact-checking department. This knowledge led Glass to devise a plan based on gradually escalating fabrication.
On the first level, virtually every aspect of an article is factual and legitimate. On the second level, most of the elements of an article are accurate with a modest degree of fabrication. This downward spiral continues until the entirety of the reporting is faked. The adoring fact-checkers are clueless and unsuspecting. Of course, no fact-checking system is equipped to deal with a writer whose work is entirely a figment of their imagination.
Hayden Christensen Isn’t the Real Star of ‘Shattered Glass’
WhenShattered Glasswas released in 2003, Hayden Christensen deservedly received enthusiastic reviews for his vital performance as Stephen Glass, as this performance is now widely regarded as arguably the best performance of Christensen’s career. However, the bulk of the acclaim for the film, both at the time of its release and especially in retrospect, isattached to Peter Sarsgaard, for his compelling performance as Charles Lane, the newly installed editor ofThe New Republicwho was the first person to see clearly through Glass’s lies and punish him accordingly.
The real protagonist ofShattered Glassis Lane, not Glass. While Glass remains virtually unchanged throughout the film, Lane evolves dramatically, beginning with the moment when Lane is tasked with replacing the popular Michael Kelly as the editor ofThe New Republic, much to the disapproval of the magazine’s staff. When Lane encounters the first evidence of Glass’s deception, after the accuracy of an article titled “Hack Heaven” is called into serious question by the website Forbes Digital Tool, Lane initially views Glass as a troubled young man with psychological problems.
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While Shattered Glass has sadly been somewhat forgotten, it’s become more timely than ever before.
However, once the extent of Glass’s blatant, intentional dishonesty becomes apparent, Lane alone demonstrates the courage and integrity with which to take decisive and necessary action. Through a single piercing stare from Sarsgaard, Lane purges the storied magazine of Glass’s cancerous influence. With this bold act of moral decisiveness, Lane gains the audience’s utmost respect, as well as that of his previously unsupportive colleagues.
‘Shattered Glass’ Predicted the Rise of Fake News
With its intense examination of the inner workings of a newsroom amid a virtually unparalleled ethical crisis,Shattered Glassranks amongthe best films ever made about journalism.Shattered Glassresonates more strongly today than it did at the time of its initial 2003 release, especially when imagining how the repercussions of Stephen Glass’s fraud would unfold in today’s increasingly transient online media world. Just asShattered Glass, which is set in 1998, serves as a poignant document of the imminent demise of print media and the onset of digital media, the film also frighteningly predicted how the already weakening fact-checking guardrails presented in the movie were destined to become virtually obsolete.
Needless to say,Glass’s elaborate deception wouldn’t be nearly as newsworthy and shocking if it were exposed today, in an era in which Glass and his fake articles could be virtually erased with the tap of a computer key. While there certainly exists today the hope and modest expectation that digital media outlets will exhibit journalistic integrity and practice responsible reporting, there are no meaningful consequences if they don’t.
Of course, if Glass’s journalistic fraud received relatively scant publicity today, it might not have been exposed if the bogus articles had been published before the emergence of digital media. When Glass’s penultimate phony article, “Hack Heaven,” was first published inThe New Republicin 1998, the article was only available in the print edition. Google didn’t exist. All that was left to expose Glass was Yahoo.Shattered Glassis streaming onTubi.
